


melt down on your bones

by surrenderer



Series: before we burn [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Insomnia, M/M, Memories, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reunions, Soft Kylux, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24327109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer
Summary: Hux is as Force-null as anyone he’s ever known, but it still roils wildly around him in his current state and he glows, even more brightly than usual. Kylo wants to bury himself in the warmth and in Hux, let himself get swept away too.When Kylo can't sleep, he wanders the halls. He finds exactly what he's looking for.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: before we burn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755583
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	melt down on your bones

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my drafts after 3 months, in a near-completed state, and when I mentioned it to [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck), their reaction was "finished??! Omg, set her free!"
> 
> So with that encouragement I went back, did some light editing, and now here it is. Totally dedicating this to you, my friend.
> 
> This is tagged for canon divergence because we have to pretend that months, not days, passed between TFA and TLJ, and that Kylo returns to the Finalizer and Hux doesn't transfer to the Supremacy. :)
> 
> This is also a direct sequel to [indestructible, as far as we know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22950913) but both can be read as stand-alones; the references aren't that important.
> 
> The title, like every other title in this series, is from [Honeyblood](https://open.spotify.com/track/2IGGFw76BvRpC8P0lDEHAi?si=JVZuOyxlTvSqLF9EeUVrMQ) by Empires.

The weariness of the _Finalizer_ settles on Kylo’s skin like a weighted blanket. It seeps outward, from its passengers into the ship herself, until every creak of durasteel sounds like exhaustion and anxiety.

He walks down the hall, the chill of the circulation system sharp on his unmasked face, but it feels good. Invigorating. Kylo doesn’t sleep well; he feels _too much_ , and while he’s never known a life without the Force, sometimes he wishes he could shut it off. Just for a little while. Enough to get a few hours of sleep every so often without either feeling the entire ship’s anxiety or projecting his own onto whichever unwitting stormtrooper is patrolling past his door that night.

It's a heavy burden to bear, but he’s never known any different.

His side still hurts sometimes, especially in the cold—a slow ache from the scar that will never heal completely. Kylo rubs at it absently as he continues down the hall. He’s not sure where he’s going, but wandering the ship like he’s some sort of phantom is certainly better than lying awake in his bed all night and waiting for a sleep that will never come.

He comes to a halt outside the officers’ gym. There’s someone inside. It’s late enough in the night that it should be empty, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s taken advantage of the hour and relative quiet to get a solitary workout in.

Kylo knows exactly who it is. He can sense him even with a durasteel door between the two of them. Hux is a bright spot in the Force, even with no powers of his own; sometimes, he shines so brightly that Kylo feels the need to avert his eyes, as ridiculous as the notion is.

It’s been some years since Kylo’s last seen Hux in the gym, though. When they were much younger, they sparred every other week or so, always late at night when there was no one else around to watch them and learn their fighting styles.

 _What use is it to give away all your secrets at once?_ Hux once pointed out when Kylo wondered why they always met late in the shift cycle when there were no spectators. _I have no interest in showing off my weaknesses to men who would like nothing more than to see me fail_.

 _Do I not count in their ranks?_ Kylo had asked, taking up his defensive stance again.

Hux only smiled at him, eyes cold despite the curve of his lips, before lunging in for the attack.

Kylo wonders what they could’ve become then, if only. If only Snoke and his influence, his _threats_ , didn’t permeate their every action and reaction. If only they truly kept no secrets from each other. If only the Force didn’t flow between them, keeping them on opposite shores and always widening the rift.

He waves the door open and steps into the room.

There’s training equipment in one half of the large room, and then a sparring mat in the other half, a low wall separating the two areas. As Kylo suspected, it’s empty at this hour; Hux is the only one in here, his back to Kylo in the doorway.

Hux is one of the best snipers Kylo’s ever seen. Kylo has watched him shoot down men from further than even he would risk, armed with the Force and all that entails. He’s sparred with Kylo in this very room, so Kylo knows he’s proficient in hand-to-hand combat, with the right incentives.

But he’s never seen him like this, in training socks with his hands bandaged up and gloved for protection, and beating up the sparring pads attached to a dummy for all they’re worth.

His technique isn’t flawless—it completely lacks the precision and control that the general is usually known for. He’s unrestrained in a way that Kylo’s never seen, brutally lashing out at each of the pads even if the recoil knocks him back a step.

His hair is loose around his face, the pomade breaking apart under the sweat. Kylo has never wanted him more. He can’t take his eyes off Hux as he sits down on the ledge next to a clean towel to watch, wouldn’t want to even if he could.

More than once, Kylo has wondered what it would be like to truly fight on a battlefield with him, as he does with his Knights. He’d love to see it. With the right training and in another world, perhaps, Hux could be magnificent.

Hux’s shoulders heave as he gulps in air when he pauses and Kylo can see the sweat beading down his neck, soaking into his shirt.

“How long have you been in here?” Hux asks once he’s regained his breath, resigned more than surprised, and Kylo blinks, refocusing on the man in front of him rather than his desire to lick the dip of his collarbone.

“A few minutes,” he hedges—it’s been longer than that, but Hux doesn’t need to know that he’s been sitting here in silence the whole time, entranced by the lines of his body and the fury of his punches. Hux is as Force-null as anyone he’s ever known, but it still roils wildly around him in his current state and he glows, even more brightly than usual. Kylo wants to bury himself in the warmth and in Hux, let himself get swept away too.

He reels himself back with some effort. “How long have you known I was here?”

Hux smirks at him, though it’s without any mirth, wiping a line of sweat from his brow with his forearm. His hair flops against his forehead and frames his face. Kylo has the urge to push it back for him, or to run his fingers through the wet strands as Hux gasps against his mouth.

“A few minutes.” It’s a mutually agreed-upon lie and it shakes Kylo out of his brief reverie. He glances at the towel next to him and floats it over to Hux, who looks like he would like to roll his eyes. He takes it anyway once he’s taken his gloves off. His hands are bandaged underneath. “I didn’t think it’d take you this long to find me.”

“I’ve been… busy,” Kylo says after a moment’s hesitation. It’s true, he’s been busy, off-ship for months and only just returned three cycles ago, but it’s not the only thing keeping him from Hux’s side.

Even before Starkiller, every encounter of theirs was laced with uncertainty—the uncertainty of being lovers while at war, but also the uncertainty of possible betrayal at every turn, no matter how many pretty words they whispered to each other. Hux would not have hesitated to stab Kylo in the back as they sparred, as they stood on the bridge, even as he lay in Kylo’s own bed, so Kylo never let his guard down.

And yet, Hux came back for him. He dragged Kylo to the evacuation shuttle himself, even as Kylo sagged against him, dying weight the whole way.

(“It was a direct order from the Supreme Leader,” Hux says shortly when Kylo asks him why. They’re in Hux’s quarters, sitting on either end of that horrendous ice-blue couch of his. Millicent is curled in Hux’s lap and he strokes her absently as he talks. It’s the first time Kylo’s been in here since getting discharged from the medbay. They will arrive at the _Supremacy_ within two standard weeks. “He would’ve known if I’d disobeyed.”

Yes, Snoke might’ve have known, but it would’ve been much easier and more convenient to throw him off the ledge and into Starkiller’s collapsing heart. There would be no body to recover. Kylo and Hux both know this. And yet.)

But then Hux waited for him to wake up, and kept him sheltered in the medbay, and made up all sorts of excuses to give him time to heal properly after he was released, to delay their arrival at the _Supremacy_.

Kylo watched him type furiously on his datapad late into a shift, rubbing at his eyes when the strain of the small font got to be too much. And then he followed him into the bowels of the _Finalizer_ where Hux folded himself down into the data pits as gracefully as any engineer on board. Kylo stayed on the access paths, watching from above as Hux yanked transmission cables out their sockets and sliced through the rubberized coating of the delicate wires that held the hyperdrive together.

It would buy them— _Kylo—_ a couple weeks of time, at the very least.

When he was done, Kylo offered him a hand so he could climb back onto the walkway.

Hux took it, and took the biting kiss that Kylo offered him even if it made his facial wound ache and sting. And if he shook slightly from the heartache of destroying more of his life’s work, then Kylo considered it a kindness of his part to not mention it at all.

He wrapped himself tightly around Hux in bed later, one hand splayed possessively across his chest as they slept. _Together, or not at all_.

It’s been months, though, and with Kylo only recently returned to the _Finalizer_ , it seems like too much to hope for that they’d return to old habits so quickly.

“Busy,” Hux repeats dryly, wiping his face on the towel one more time before he stops to take in Kylo. Kylo stares back, certain that Hux can see how pale he is, the dark circles under his eyes, the deep, but healed, scar that stretches all the way down his neck. The last time they saw each other, the microsutures were still stark on his skin. “From what I hear, you’ve done nothing but stalk the halls and terrorize my troops since your return, as usual.”

In turn, he studies Hux. There’s a shadow of a beard on his sharp jawline, a testament to the late hour and how long he’s been on his feet. The circles under his eyes are as prominent as Kylo’s. They stand out just as sharply on his pale face. “If you needed me, you could’ve _asked_ ,” he says, petulant even to his own ears. It’s true; he hasn’t gone to see Hux, but Hux has made himself scarce as well, always unapproachable on the bridge or in meetings or just _unavailable_.

“Would you have listened? Would you have come even if I’d asked?” Hux retorts as he starts the slow process of unbandaging his hands, towel draped around his neck. He winces as the pressure loosens, the ache in his knuckles becoming more apparent as he flexes his hands and uncurls them from their clenched position. The thick padding of the boxing gloves prevents bruising and more serious injuries, but there’s still strain on his arms and shoulders.

Kylo has felt worse pain in his life, and so has Hux. Soreness from physical training is nothing. But he’s still overcome with the urge to be gentle, to take Hux’s hands and press his lips to them carefully, to use the Force to ease the ache in his back so it’ll be bearable when Hux reports for duty on the bridge in a few hours.

He doesn’t, though, because he’s been gone for months and the Hux standing in front of him is not the same one he knew before Starkiller’s demise. He’s colder, made deadlier by the war they fight, but there’s a frenetic energy about him that wasn’t there before. A desperation to please, but also to _win,_ to bring about the destruction and glory he’d promised Kylo in their most private moments. It emanates off him in waves; Kylo can almost taste it when they’re alone like this. He _wants to_ , he wants anything that can shake the oppressive chill off his shoulders, that can lift this veil and help him see clearly again.

Things were easier before Starkiller, he thinks. But he feels the pull of the light more often now and every time, it feels like the Force is trying to tear him apart, set on destroying him from the inside out with its conflict. And if it’s going to consume him, what would it do to Hux if he gets too close?

Snoke was right about one thing, as loathe as he is to admit it. It feels like his soul’s been cleaved in two.

He doesn’t answer Hux’s question, and that seems to be answer enough in and of itself, judging from the sardonic twist of his lips. Kylo feels guilty, for a second, as if he’s done something he shouldn’t have, despite not knowing that he shouldn’t have.

The moment passes; Hux discards the used wrappings in the compactor, pulls his boots back on, then heads toward the door, leaving Kylo still sitting on the ledge. “Are you coming or not?” he asks in the doorway, and Kylo hastens to catch up with him.

They walk down the hallway in silence. It’s so late in the shift now that they don’t pass any patrols on their way, which suits them both just fine. Hux looks disheveled enough from his workout and Kylo looks like he hasn’t slept in three days. He’d have to wipe the memory of any trooper who saw them in this state.

Eventually, they stop at a familiar door. Hux enters his access code, then leans in for the retinal scan. There’s no clear invitation, but Kylo follows him inside anyway, because why else would Hux allow him to follow him all the way back to his quarters?

He hasn’t been here since his return to the _Finalizer_ , but things are much the same as when he left.

The small sitting room is dark and quiet; Kylo senses one other living being in here other than himself and Hux, which is the usual state of things. It’s Millicent, waiting impatiently by her small food dish and meowing her displeasure. Hux sighs, although much less impatiently than when he has to deal with Kylo, and goes over to shake the dish and even out the distribution of kibble.

Kylo doesn’t know what to do, now that he’s here. Hux moves around him in the small space, almost as if he’s not there, but when he heads into the ‘fresher, Kylo’s feet take him to the bedroom instinctively. He leaves the lights off as he strips methodically, removing boots first, then each part of his uniform until he’s down to his underwear. Hux would want him to hang the clothes up, but he leaves them in a heap in the corner, as he always does. Millicent will likely make a home out of them by the end of the shift, if she doesn’t attempt to fit herself into whatever space is left in bed with them.

The off-white regulation sheets are rough on his bare skin, but the pillow cases smell like the shampoo Hux uses, a faint minty scent, so Kylo presses his face into one and closes his eyes. He’s so tired.

He’s already drifting off when Hux comes out of the ‘fresher in a clean undershirt and loose pants, but he hears the soft clink of his dogtags landing on the bedside table as Hux gets into the bed next to him. Kylo’s left barely enough room on the mattress for him, but Hux finds a way to fit himself in, pushing and twisting until Kylo huffs and shifts closer to the wall to make more room.

“Does it hurt?” Hux asks finally, when they’ve settled in. Kylo isn’t sure if he’s talking about his injuries, the lingering ache of them, or the Force eating away at him from the inside out, but he answers anyway.

“Sometimes,” he mumbles, rolling over to look at Hux tiredly. He smells like mint, sharp and clean, and his hair is a darkened shade of copper, so he must’ve indulged in an actual shower, with warm water. “It feels like… it feels like I’m being torn apart. Ripped slowly into shreds.”

Hux nods as if he understands, when Kylo knows he does not. It doesn’t matter to him, not really, because he’s still allowed to be here, in Hux’s rooms and his bed, and that’s enough for him after months without.

“Can I?” he asks helplessly, like it’s years ago when the voices in his head were too much to bear and he didn’t know how to shut them out. He hasn’t felt like this since he shed the skin of Ben Solo to stand anew as Kylo Ren.

To his relief, Hux nods again, rolling over so his back faces Kylo, and Kylo curls himself up against his body like he was made to be there. Their legs slot together, as they always do, and Kylo drapes his arm over Hux’s waist, tucking his other arm under the pillow they share. His hand finds an easy resting place on Hux’s slim chest as he breathes in the scent of minty shampoo, stronger than the scent lingering on the pillows. He can feel his heartbeat fluttering rapidly under his palm.

Hux shifts in his arms to get comfortable, running his fingertips along Kylo’s forearm gently. The touch grounds him enough to regain his control, so Kylo takes a deep breath as he reaches out with the Force, gently nudging the edges of Hux’s mind.

Hux welcomes him in, and Kylo can’t even bring himself to care if this isn’t precisely what Hux wanted out of their reunion, because this is what _he_ needs. His own mind is blissfully quiet for once as he sinks inside.

His whole life, he’s been constantly aware of everything around him. Snoke whispering in his ear. The scavenger girl now too, and General Organa, and even killing Han Solo didn’t silence his gruff voice. All the figures of Ben Solo’s past, and their recriminations and glaring eyes, haunt his dreams and now, his waking hours too. All Kylo’s ever really wanted is peace, and here, sharing Hux’s mind, he can find it. The voices are silent for once, shut out by Hux’s force of will and Kylo can breathe freely.

He savors the silence, floats in it, so it takes him a moment to place the soft sounds he’s starting to hear. It takes another moment to realize that Hux is thinking about music and letting Kylo soak in the memory of it.

The mournful tune is nothing Kylo recognizes, either from his life or from Ben Solo’s, and the simple fact that Hux enjoys something from his past enough to share it with him is a shock.

 _Traditional Arkanisian folk music_ , Hux explains when he feels Kylo frown against his skin in confusion. _I was forced into attending performances when I was small. Sitting at a concert was boring as all hells, of course, but the music soothed me._

There’s more to the story, a bittersweet tinge and an accompanying warmth to Hux’s thoughts, as if the music is tied to a fond memory that he doesn’t want to think too hard about, but Kylo doesn’t feel like pressing further, not when Hux has let him into his mind for a respite after all these months.

 _They’re not singing in Basic,_ he finally ventures when the music starts taking on more defined qualities—there’s female vocalists and he can hear the flow of the melody fading in and out, interspersed with what sounds like raindrops hitting a windowpane. Ben Solo knew several languages—his mother had expected to train him as a politician, if not a Jedi—but this isn’t one he recognizes.

 _Every child on Arkanis learns a little of the ancient language, mostly through song,_ Hux sighs, although he doesn’t sound exasperated by Kylo’s observations, just tired. _This one was well-known during the civil war…. a woman watches her lover go to war and waits for his return. You can see why it became popular._

Hux is not a sentimental man—he’s annihilated an entire system, millions of people, without batting an eye, he’s killed men and women who’ve stood in the way of his ascent, and he’s not the type to pine after a lover like the woman in the song. But Kylo also remembers a visit in the medbay in the dead of night. And while he might’ve dreamed that in the haze of the sedatives, he also remembers Hux sliding down into the Finalizer’s data pits and destroying his own prized ship, all for the sake of keeping him safe a little longer.

 _It’s nice. I can see why you remember it,_ he thinks, carefully, lest Hux thinks he’s mocking him. It wouldn’t be the first time their communication wires have crossed. He doesn’t have to see Hux’s face to know he’s rolling his eyes anyway, but it’s a pleasant surprise when he rolls over and allows Kylo to press his face against the crook of his neck. Hux doesn’t often indulge him in his softer desires—Kylo must look even worse than he’d initially assumed.

He nearly purrs like Millicent when Hux slips his hand underneath his hair and rubs the nape of his neck with an uncharacteristically soft touch.

_Go to sleep, Ren._

Contrary to popular belief, Kylo can take a hint when he wants to, so he settles in, happy to just stay here in Hux’s mind and bed for the time being. Sleep tugs at him insistently now that the ghosts of his past have stopped haunting him, and he eagerly succumbs to it as Hux runs his long fingers through his hair.

The last thing he hears before he drifts off, so quiet that he thinks he might’ve imagined it, is _I’m glad you’re back._

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is the first thing I've ever written from Kylo's POV and have been halfway pleased with, so that's a win, I think.
> 
> I am on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/parttimewonders) and [Tumblr](https://part-timewonders.tumblr.com/) and welcome new friends.


End file.
